Across the world, and for decades, the Indian diaspora was regarded as a model minority—productive, eager to assimilate, law-abiding and generally civil. This image is rapidly being tarnished, with a rising tide of hate directed against the community. The escalating racism, xenophobia and anti-migrant sentiment in the US and the wider West are certainly among the sources of this growing antipathy, but cannot exhaust the entire burden of culpability.
Over recent years, increasingly ‘bad behaviour’ among elements of the Indian diaspora has provoked a backlash, as aggressive demonstrations of religious and national identities as well as engagement in criminality, violence and a cynical exploitation of the freedoms and welfare schemes offered in some host countries, undermine historically positive images. There is, moreover, a progressive failure—often a refusal—to integrate with the host cultures, with elements of the Indian diaspora clustering in ethnic ghettos and striving to recreate the very cultures—or some imagined imitation of these—they sought to escape by migrating.
Relatively recent initiatives by the Indian state and by the ruling dispensation at New Delhi, as well as by some radical religious and political formations, to mobilise the Indian diaspora around the toxic politics of the home country, has infinitely worsened the situation, as an alien politics and unfamiliar, often disorderly and raucous, patterns of public articulation spill over into the streets. This often escalates anti-migrant sentiments within the resurgence of ‘right wing’ politics in the West. The crude instrumentalisation of the Indian diaspora as a proxy in the Indian leaderships’ battles against dissident elements on foreign soil, as well as a vehicle for purported ‘soft power projection’, is increasingly perceived as interference in the domestic politics of host countries. Harping on the ‘power of the Indian Diaspora’, the present regime at New Delhi exports its own political agenda to alienated sections of the diaspora, paving the road to ethnic isolation, polarisation and hatred. The emergence of an extremist-gangster nexus—most prominently the Khalistani-gangster nexus—in several countries, but particularly visible in Canada and the US, has darkened these images further.
It is useful to recall that the Indian Diaspora is the largest in the world, estimated at about 18 million by the UN World Migration Report 2024, and nearly double that number, at 35.42 million, by India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Many Indians have risen to the highest ranks in the political, administrative and corporate structures of host countries. These positive images were cemented by the extraordinary role played by Indian—principally Sikh—organisations and volunteers during the Covid pandemic. Crucially, a large proportion of the Indian diaspora is drawn from educated and skilled professional classes and entrepreneurs who have contributed significantly to local economies in the host countries. Unfortunately, stereotypes linked to their economic success and perceived cultural differences partially fuel the rising xenophobia of the West. Moreover, increasing numbers of Indian migrants are drawn from the labour classes, many of them entering the host countries illegally. Their ability to integrate with local cultures is limited, even as regressive behavioural patterns are actively promoted by radical religious-nationalist subcultures crystallising in the host countries.
The overwhelming focus, at present, is on the Trump administration’s largely lawless actions. The spectacle of handcuffed and shackled illegal Indian migrants offloaded from US military aircrafts at Amritsar, after their expulsion from the US was, no doubt, disgraceful. In the US, it is not just illegal migrants, but legal workers, Green Card holders, as well as citizens, who are coming under the scope of President Donald Trump’s sweeping campaign against migrant communities, and this is, doubtless, distressing.
It is, however, necessary to recognise that the problem goes well beyond Trump and is affecting, or will soon afflict, the Indian Diaspora in many other countries as well. Sagacious elements among persons of Indian origin abroad, as well as the Indian government, would do well to review their priorities and conduct in the context of the dismal realities emerging across the world.
